The former chair of Awema yesterday launched an attack on the decision to use the “nuclear option” of terminating all funding to the disgraced charity, leading to its liquidation.

The former chair of Awema yesterday launched an attack on the decision to use the “nuclear option” of terminating all funding to the disgraced charity, leading to its liquidation.

Dr Rita Austin, appearing before Assembly Members in the Public Accounts Committee, said that the new leadership of the now-defunct All-Wales Ethnic Minority Association should have had the opportunity to “remedy” the situation painted by a highly-critical internal audit services report.

She said there should have been “transparency” in the decision making.

The report – published in February – prompted a decision by Finance Minister Jane Hutt to stop funding to Awema, with the organisation being wound up a month later.

Opposition parties said her appearance raised more questions about how the Welsh Government handled the affair.

Dr Austin – who was chair of the charity between 2002 and 2007, and then again from December 2011 to its liquidation in March this year – said that the organisation’s “feet were never held to the fire” to respond to an action plan on development.

She said: “I believed then, I still believe now, that the changes I and the remaining trustees had effected with regard to financial control, with regard to personnel services and so on, were sufficient to demonstrate that we could turn the organisation around,” she said.

A report from the Wales Audit Office (WAO) in October criticised the Welsh Government for the “often weak” oversight of public money given to Awema, which totalled £7.1m, to run projects aimed at improving the employment prospects of people from ethnic minorities.

The Western Mail first revealed a series of allegations of financial irregularities at the organisation in January, including claims charity money had been used to pay for gym memberships for staff, rugby and cricket tickets and a £110 parking fine for chief executive Naz Malik.

But yesterday a bullish Dr Austin also launched a broadside at AMs, saying that “prejudicial comments” in attacks from opposition parties against Awema led to “20 days at least constant, strident, partial, often ill-informed interventions by AMs of all opposition parties, including their leaderships, against Awema, which fed into unlegitimate and unremitting negative media”.

Her appearance came after an appeared from the Permanent Secretary Derek Jones, who said that Awema had been given the “benefit of the doubt” in eight previous occasions when concerns were raised about the organisation.

He also admitted that there had been a “reluctance” to pursue governance within Awema, and that the WAO report “makes you wince to read it, as an Accounting Officer”.

He said that Welsh Government organisation prior to the scandal was not “sufficiently joined-up”.

The Welsh Conservatives said that the Welsh Government still had lessons to learn over the affair and said that First Minister Carwyn Jones should apologise for its handling.

Shadow Finance Minister Paul Davies said: “This evidence session still leaves considerable unanswered questions for Welsh Labour Ministers about how they spectacularly failed to oversee the spending of public money.

“Dr Austin’s evidence raises serious questions about government checks and balances, which should have been in place to prevent such financial mismanagement and abuse.

“Labour Ministers closing ranks and refusing to speak out on the lessons they need to learn only serves to fuel speculation of a Labour attempt to gloss over such a fiasco.”

Plaid Cymru AM Jocelyn Davies, who sits on the committee, said that the Welsh Government had not been “sufficiently rigorous” to keep a check on its grant system

She said: “Current systems for assessing the risk of grant recipients is completely underdeveloped and today Awema refused to acknowledge their part in the saga.

“It is crucial that the Welsh Government at last gets to grips with these failings if public confidence is to be restored.”

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